Copyright 1992 by Eric P. Scott. All rights reserved.
RUsers Prototype 9209A demonstrates a graphical interface to the
rusers protocol. It is a complete reimplementation rather than
a front end to the command-line rusers program. While this
version only runs under NeXTstep, it is capable of monitoring any
system which provides the rusers version 2 RPC server. [While
that includes VAX/VMS systems with TGV MultiNet, VMS users will
never appear to be logged onto the "console" device.] Note that
NeXT managed to "break" rpc.rusersd in Release 2.0 (it's prone to
dropping dead, particularly when no one's logged in). I
understand that this is only one of several network programs
known to be buggy in 2.x that NeXT still has NOT fixed in 3.0.
You won't have problem with Sun (or any other UNIX vendor I'm
aware of)--theirs "just works ... out of the box."
Documentation:
README This file.
MapView.rtf Description of the class that does most
of the grunt work.
Executables:
RUsers.app Executable and friends.
1.0/rpc.rusersd Viable replacement for NeXT's broken
/usr/etc/rpc.rusersd in NeXT Software
Release 2.x.
Images with reserved names:
down.tiff Machine doesn't respond.
(Raised arrow pointing downward.)
nobody.tiff Machine is up, no users.
(Raised arrow pointing upward.)
somebody.tiff Someone logged in remotely.
(As above, with dot.)
unknown.tiff Someone logged into console, no NeXT Mail
picture. (Generic face.)
balloon.tiff Cursor to display when mouse down will do
something interesting. Its "hot spot" is
hardcoded in the sample application. :-(
Images that may or may not be useful:
macrgb.tiff Macintosh(R) RGB monitor (to represent
A/UX). {24,45,64,64}
macII.tiff Same, but resting on top of a Mac II.
megapixel.tiff NeXT grayscale display. {21,35,64,64}
pint-of-milk.tiff Can be used for machines whose pictures
are "missing." {2,13,64,64}
quart-of-milk.tiff Ditto. {2,98,64,64}
Numbers in {braces} indicate suggested "people" inlay.
sef+.tiff The search for NeXT Mail pictures can be
preempted by placing an appropriately-
named file in the .app wrapper.
Before you can use RUsers, you'll need to create a configuration
file describing your network. (The format is described in
MapView.rtf.) When RUsers starts up, it looks at the NXOpen
default for the name of the configuration file to use. If that
doesn't work, it looks in its .app wrapper for config@<hostname>
where <hostname> is replaced by your hostname string (unless it
happens to be localhost), and then simply config.
Other trivia: The position and size of the window is saved in the
MapFrame default. (This is actually describes the content
rectangle.) A different strategy will be needed if a future
version supports multiple MapViews.
When the "Update" menu item undims, RUsers is no longer obtaining
current information. Click to initiate another survey.
--> I want more machine images! (Especially the popular ones.)
Author's e-mail address: eps@cs.sfsu.edu, NeXT Mail discouraged.
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.